My wife and I are the happy parents of a sixteen-month-old boy. Having a kid has turned out to be every bit as wonderful and exhausting as our family and friends told us it would be. We can see why everyone we knew with children, including our own parents, told us with that knowing smile, “Your life will never be the same.” They were right. There’s never a dull moment, is there? Every day presents new challenges and responsibilities.
For example, a couple hours ago, my son was screaming at his grandma for taking a bite of his banana. Nap time soon? Sheesh.
Successfully getting baby down to sleep at night or for a nap during the day is an elaborate and delicate art. Stop me if you’ve been in this situation: You’ve just given your baby her bottle, and she’s fast asleep. Thanks be to the powers above. But before your silent self-congratulation party gets started, there’s one more task – getting her from your lap to her crib with zero waking up, and far more importantly, zero crashing to the floor in the arms of a parent who hasn’t given enough thought to nighttime lighting for baby’s room.
This entry will introduce you to some simple lighting solutions to ensure that your baby makes it from well-intentioned lap to crib without you tripping over anything or putting your baby in the hamper instead of the crib. And – who knows? – as Tiny Baby slowly transforms into Little Terror (I kid, I kid), maybe these lighting solutions will make beddy-bye seem less an exile to a dark abyss than a fun trip to a cozy safe haven.
FIVE LIGHTING SOLUTIONS FOR BABY’S ROOM
1. Use the Coolest Lighting Invention Ever: LED Tape!
Some things must be acknowledged. One of them is that LED tape, which comes in white, colored, color-changing, and can even be controlled with a remote, is extremely, extremely cool. With it, you could create a neat-o nighttime environment for your youngster. Riff on the idea below, using LED tape to create a halo effect around something in the room. Backlight a bookshelf. Use cove lighting, if possible. There are infinite ways to get creative with LED tape!
2. Write Baby’s Name in LED Rope.
A few weeks ago, Emily wrote a great post about some easy and thrilling LED rope projects for home. Applying Emily’s word art suggestion to a baby’s room project is easy for me: My son’s name is Leo – very easy to craft in cursive with a single length of LED rope. If your baby’s name isn’t Agamemnon – or heck, even if it is! – consider using LED rope to personalize your baby’s room in this really smart and fun way.
3. Use an In-Wall Night Light
Instead of that old incandescent night light just begging to be pulled out of the wall by your young one’s inquisitive hands, consider a safer and greener alternative. LED night lights will safen and cozy-up baby’s room in elegant and energy-smart fashion.
4. Get Creative with Battery Operated Mini LED GuideLights
These little guys can be stuck anywhere – along stairwells, baseboards, or even on cribs. They will provide enough light to make things much safer without being too bright, and the adhesive backs are reusable – just wipe with a damp cloth and they are ready for any location you choose.
5. Go All Out with Fiber Optics
Brian d’Arcy of Philadelphia doesn’t play around when it comes to the lighting in his son’s nursery. Before baby d’Arcy was born, his expecting dad spent forty hours installing a fiber optic starry sky kit that would twinkle above every night. Now that’s love.
